Completely alone in the world. What are my options for finding new relationships?

Hey all,

Does anyone have any advice on how to start finding new relationships? I'd seriously appreciate any ideas anyone can offer. I'm in my early 30s, male, and single, and I don't know where to start.

I'm literally alone in the world. My family's been twisted and abusive to me my whole life, the friends I made were like the people in my family (as in, not good!), and I'm single right now. The fact that I'm alone in the world has been freaking me out my whole life ... like, I had to raise myself when I was a kid. No one cared if I lived or died, family messed with my head sociopath-style, that whole deal. Pretty screwed up stuff.

I've spent every.single.day for the past four years working through the consequences of my "upbringing", and now here I am. I'm seeing my issues with a clearer lens finally, and the most important issue to me is the fact that I'm seriously, truly alone in the world. And it sucks! It's terrible. Relationships are the most important thing to me in my life, I'm definitely a very social person who values strong, positive connections with other people, but right now I'm sorta at square one here.

A little more about my situation: Live in the suburbs right now just outside NYC. I'm thinking of moving back to NYC because it's easier for me to find people I have things in common with and I had some almost successes when I lived there, but I bungled it by my anxiety, depression, scapegoat identity, PTSD, whatever you want to call it. I have a better grip on this stuff now than I did then, so I'd like to give things another shot. My job is filled with anti-social jerks, ala my family (funny how you keep finding these people...), so co-workers aren't an option til I find a better working environment.

Is it still possible to find new relationships at this age? I'm in my early 30s and a guy. I feel sorta weird and "not right" about the fact that I have to go out and find a new "family" or relationship life from scratch. Just seems like everyone's got their life set up already and they're just done with things.

I know luck didn't fall on my side due to being born to a family of aggressive, anti-social brainwashing jerks, but I have to be honest, I feel a little stigmatized here and that's a nice chunk of my anxiety and hopelessness about this.

Anyway, thank you for reading this, and I'm looking forward to any ideas anyone has to offer!

What are your interests? I think a good way to make friends is to maybe take a class at a community college or some place doing something fun. Cooking or wine tasting etc… I made many new friends in college at 30. Doing something you enjoy will give you the chance to meet people who have the same interests. Also maybe try meetup.com

hi chorOnzon - there are many opportunities to meet people. The suggestions above are good ones - take classes, do fun things - as mentioned above, or take art (drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, pottery), or music, or get involved in theatre. You could learn another language (take the classes), or do volunteering - many agencies are out there. Join a dinner club. Or a book club. Writing club. Poetry. And value the time that you have for yourself. You could invite people for dinner parties, pizza parties, potluck, etc. Many ideas.

ha ha ha "at this age" dude , there are those out there that would say 'your still a baby"..i'm 13 yrs your senior and someone said that to ME the other day, LOL! imagine that!!

so to answer your question..absolutely! so i am kinda sorta in the same boat,
i got out of a relationship last summer ( it somehow morphed into a love triangle and ended in disaster..hmm didn't see that coming!) but anyways.
back single again.

so what's a single guys to do??

first of all, you gotta get out and meet people..IMHO the internet is a terrible place to try to meet girls, so scratch that( silly dating sates with fake profiles, pics of girls from like 15 yrs ago & sometimes it's not even her! yikes!)

so the best way is the good ol fashioned way..face to face.everywhere is an opportunity.

this may sound funny but wal mart & the gas station are two of the best places to meet girls..the car wash is good too. bars bleh..not much of a barfly and too much competition..same with night clubs.

a gym membership is good, very good and just out and about talking to and meeting any gal that catches your eye.

with you living near NYC the opportunities are endless..the main thing is to get out there and start talking! goodluck

Similar life, similar abuse, isolated self though for 5+ years whilst I worked on my past. Unfortunately turns out I only did the psychology of it. Find out in last year how numb i've been, and that now I have a lot of emotions need to process.

26 nothing in life, then met someone and now I want to build a life.
I feel the pinch of starting late, career especially, but only advice I can give without being hypocritical, is be yourself, but find yourself first.

When you're exploring interests whatever, that's when you meet real people, not people trying to impress. If you do hit the gym, go for yourself, not to "meet up" ya know?

Most of all, resist the temptation to rush! It's a killer!

Goodluck.